"‘This is the jazz of now: Dramatic, expressive and present" - Skylashes on The SURFACE Project

"A greater constancy to jazz's restless spirit than any number of aspirational takes on the 'Great American Songbook'' - All About Jazz on Tom Barton/Diego Villalta

After sell-out album launches in Melbourne in late 2015, The SURFACE Project and Tom Barton/Diego Villalta duo are sharing their unique and innovative vision of music with the rest of Australia in early 2016.

About The SURFACE Project
The SURFACE Project brings together the excitement and spontaneity of improvisation with the atmospheric textures of folk music, and delivers it with the raw energy of a rock gig - with original compositions featuring lush soundscapes, driving grooves and irresistible melodies.

"Composer, bassist, genre-bending sound explorer, Claire Cross is the leading force behind Surface, an electric jazz-rock outfit that modernizes the fusion tradition, adding to it elements of folk and electronica"

About Tom Barton/Diego Villalta
Innovative jazz vocalist Tom Barton has joined with guitarist/composer Diego Villalta to release an album of improvised works recorded in Osaka, Japan, in early 2015. This album is the duo's first recording together, following years of musical collaboration between the Victorian College of the Arts graduates.

Connections feature daring explorations into the sublime and surreal, sketched with a diversity of musical techniques and electronic experimentation. Wholly improvised, the recording was inspired by the duo's time touring Japan. The music is a journey between sacred inner spaces and the chaotic, wondrous natural world.

"It feels cinematic - painting an urban landscape in the chill before dawn, as the sounds of the machines of the city grow into the day, with beautiful understated hints of what sounds like a muted saxophone and treated guitar" - Phil Barnes, AAJ"